The Forest Runners: A Story of the Great War Trail in Early Kentucky, Altsheler [best ebook reader under 100 TXT] 📗

"Unless a white man should come wandering here, and that isn't likely, it won't be disturbed. It's been a good place for us."

"Yes," said Paul, "it has been a good home to us. I've spent a happy winter here, and I want to see it again."

But they had little time for sentiment. They were making the fast touches of preparation for the second stage of the great war trail—arranging clothing, light supplies of food, and, above all, ammunition. Then they left at night in their canoe. As they approached the mainland, all, as if by involuntary impulse, looked back at the haunted island, looming darkly in the night.

"It was no haunted island for us," said Paul.

"No," said Henry.

They landed, hid the canoe, and then, plunging into the forest, sped far to the south and east on tireless feet.

THE WARNING

Meanwhile war belts were passing through all the forest, from tribe to tribe, to Shawnee, Miami, Ottawa, Wyandot—to every band, large or small. Another great effort would be made to drive back the thin white vanguard that was now entering the finest hunting ground savages had ever known—the vast green wilderness of the Mississippi Valley, where the warriors had roamed and killed game for unknown generations. Northern and southern tribes had often met and fought in Kain-tuck-ee, but always each retreated after the conflict to north or to south, leaving Kain-tuck-ee as it was before—a land of forest and canebrake, inhabited only by the wild beast.

Now, every warrior felt that the coming of the white stream over the mountains, however slender it might be at first, threatened a change, great and disastrous to them, unless checked at once. These white men cut down the forest, built houses that were meant to stay in one place—houses of logs—and plowed up the fields where the forest had been. They felt in some dim, but none the less certain, way that not only their favorite hunting grounds, but they and their own existence, were threatened.

They had failed the year before in a direct attack upon the new settlements, but these little oases in the wilderness must in time perish unless the white stream coming over the mountains still reached them, nourishing them with fresh bone and sinew, and making them grow. A great wagon train was coming, and this they would strike, surprising it in the vast, dark wilderness when it was not dreaming that even a single warrior was near.

A great defeat they had suffered at Wareville the year before still stung, and the spur of revenge was added to the spur of need. What they felt they ought to do was exactly what they wanted to do, and they were full of hope. They did not know that the stream flowing over the mountains, now so small, was propelled by a tremendous force behind it, the great white race always moving onward, and they expected nothing less than a complete triumph.

Active warriors passed through the deep woods, bearing belts and messages. Their faces were eager, and always they urged war. A long journey lay before them, but the blow would be a master stroke. They were received everywhere with joy and approval. The tomahawks were dug up, the war dances were danced, the war songs sung, and the men began to paint their faces and bodies for battle. A hum and a murmur ran through the northwestern forests, the hum and murmur of preparation and hope. Only the five, on their little island in the lake, yet heard this hum and murmur, so ominous to the border, but they were ready to carry the message through the wilderness to those to whom the warning meant the most.

The largest wagon train that had yet crossed the mountains into Kain-tuck-ee toiled slowly along the Wilderness Road among the foothills, bearing steadily toward the Northwest. The line of canvas covers stretched away more than a hundred in number, and contained five hundred souls, of whom, perhaps, half were men and boys capable of bearing arms, the rest women and children.

They looked upon mountain, hill and forest, river and brook, with much the same eyes as those with which Henry and Paul had beheld them not so very long before, but they were not seeking at random in the wilderness as the Wareville people had done. No, they moved forward now to a certain mark. They were to join their brethren at Wareville and Marlowe, and double the strength of the settlements. Word had come to them over the mountains that the little outposts in the vast wilderness lived and flourished, and the country was good. Moreover, they and their strength were needed. Wareville and Marlowe looked for them as eagerly as they looked for Wareville and Marlowe.

Spring was deepening, and already had drawn its robe of green over all the earth, but Daniel Poe, the commander of the wagon train, paid little attention to its beauty. He was nearly sixty years of age, but in the very prime of his strength—a great, square-shouldered man, his head and face covered with thick, black beard. His eyes had their habitual look of watchful care. They had seen no Indian sign as they crossed the mountains, but he knew now that they were on the Dark and Bloody Ground, and the lives of five hundred human beings were a heavy responsibility.

"You are sure the country is entirely safe?" he said to Dick Salter, one of his guides.

"I don't know no reason to doubt it," replied Salter. "The savages don't often get down here. The villages uv the northwestern tribes must be close on to a thousand miles from here, an' besides they were beat off last year, an' beat badly, when they tried to rush Wareville."

"That is so," said Daniel Poe thoughtfully; "we had word of it. But, Dick, we can't afford to take all these people into danger here in the woods. Look at the women and children."

They had just begun to stop for the night, and to draw the wagons into a circle in a convenient, slightly hollowed, open place. The women and children were trooping about upon the grass, and the air was filled with the sound of merry voices. All were browned by the sun, but they were healthy and joyous, and they looked forward with keen delight to meeting kin who had gone on before at Wareville. They had no fear of the mighty forests, when more than two hundred pairs of strong arms fenced them about.

"That is shorely a pleasant sight," said Dick Salter. "I've seed the same many evenin's, an' I hope to see it many more evenin's. We'll get 'em through, Mr. Poe, we'll get 'em through!"

"I hope so," said Daniel Poe earnestly.

They had begun to light the evening fires, and in the west a great red sun blazed just above the hills. Daniel Poe suddenly put his hand upon Dick Salter's arm.

"Dick, what is that?" he said, pointing with a long forefinger.

A black silhouette had appeared on the crest of a hill in the very eye of the sun, and Dick Salter, shading his brow with his hand, gazed long and anxiously.

"It's a man," he said at last, "an' ef I'm any judge uv a human bein' it's about the finest specimen uv a man that ever trod green grass. Look, Mr. Poe!"

The figure, outlined against its brilliant background, seemed to grow and come nearer. Others had seen now, and the whole wagon train gazed with intent and curious eyes. They saw in the blazing light every detail of an erect and splendid figure, evidently that of a youth, but tall beyond the average of men. He was clad in forest garb—fringed hunting shirt and leggings and raccoon-skin cap. He stood erect, but easily, holding by the muzzle a long, slender-barreled rifle, which rested, stock upon the ground. Seen there in all the gorgeous redness of the evening sunlight, there was something majestic, something perhaps weird and unreal, in the grand and silent figure.

"He's white, that's shore!" said Dick Salter.

"He looks like a wilderness god," murmured Daniel Poe, in his beard.

"Look!" exclaimed Dick Salter. "There's another!"

A second figure appeared suddenly beside the first, that of a youth, also, not so tall as the first; but he, too, stood erect, silent and motionless, gazing at the wagon train.

"And a third!" exclaimed Daniel Poe.

"And a fourth and fifth!" added Dick Salter. "See, there are five uv 'em!"

Three other figures had appeared, seeming to arise in the sunlight as if by Arabian magic; and now all five stood there in a row, side by side, everyone silent and motionless, and everyone holding by the muzzle a long, slender-barreled rifle, its stock upon the ground, as he gazed at the train.

A deep breath ran through the crowd of emigrants, and all—men, women, and children—moved forward for a better look. There was something mysterious and uncanny in this sudden apparition of the five there in the blazing light of the setting sun, which outlined their figures in every detail and raised them to gigantic proportions. On those hills only was light; everywhere else the mighty curving wilderness, full of unknown terrors, was already dark with the coming night.

"It is our omen of danger. I feel it, I feel it In every bone of me," murmured Daniel Poe into his great black beard.

"We must find out what this means, that's shore," said Dick Salter.

But as he spoke, the first figure, that of the great, splendid youth, stepped right out of the eye of the sun, and he was followed in single file by the four others, all stepping in unison. They came down the hill, and directly toward the travelers. Again that deep breath ran through the crowd of emigrants, and the chief note of it was admiration, mingled with an intense curiosity.

All the five figures were strange and wild, sinewy, powerful, almost as dark as Indians, their eyes watchful and wary and roving from side to side, their clothing wholly of skins and furs, singular and picturesque. They seemed almost to have come from another world. But Daniel Poe was never lacking either in the qualities of hospitality or leadership.

"Friends," he said, "as white men—for such I take you to be—you are welcome to our camp."

The first of the five, the great, tall youth with the magnificent shoulders, smiled, and it seemed to Daniel Poe that the smile was wonderfully frank and winning.

"Yes, we are white, though we may not look it," he said in a clear, deep voice, "and we have come near a thousand miles to meet you."

"To meet us?" repeated Daniel Poe, in surprise, while Dick Salter, beside him, was saying to himself, as he looked at one of the five: "Ef that ain't Tom Ross, then I'll eat my cap."

"Yes," repeated Henry Ware, with the most convincing emphasis, "it's you that we've come to meet. We belong at Wareville, although we've been far in the North throughout the winter. My name is Henry Ware, this is Paul Cotter, and these are Tom Ross, Sol Hyde, and Jim Hart. We must have a word with you at once, where the others cannot hear."

Tom Ross and Dick Salter, old friends, were already shaking hands. Henry Ware glanced at the emigrants pressing forward in a great crowd, and sympathy and tenderness showed in his eyes as he looked at the eager, childish faces so numerous among them.

"Will you keep them back?" he said to Daniel Poe. "I must speak to you where none of those can hear."

Daniel Poe waved away the crowd, and then took a step forward.

"We have come," said Henry Ware, in low, intense tones, "to warn you that you are going to be attacked by a great force of warriors, furnished by the league of the northwestern tribes. They mean that you shall never reach Wareville or Marlowe, to double the strength of those settlements. They would have laid an ambush for you, but we have been among them and we know their plans."

A shiver ran through the stalwart frame of Daniel Poe—a shiver of apprehension, not for himself, but for the five hundred human lives intrusted to his care. Then he steadied himself.

"We can fight," he said, "and I thank you for your warning; I cannot doubt its truth."

"We will stay with you," said Henry Ware. "We know the signs of the forest, and we can help in the battle that is sure to come, and also before and after."

His voice was full of confidence and courage, and it sent an electric thrill through the veins of Daniel Poe. Henry Ware was one of those extraordinary human beings whose very presence seems to communicate strength to others.

"We'll beat 'em off," said Daniel Poe sanguinely.

"Yes, we'll beat